


A Cup of Coffee Full of Sober Nights

by ama



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-15
Updated: 2014-07-15
Packaged: 2018-02-09 01:20:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1963590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ama/pseuds/ama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Babe and Gene discuss silence, Bill, home, Jackson, and promises.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Cup of Coffee Full of Sober Nights

**Author's Note:**

> A little plot bunny inspired by the fact that (while I am thrilled that Gene looks at Babe in 'The Last Patrol') I think the expression on his face looks almost... angry? Yeah. Which is interesting. Title is from "Keep Me Warm" by Ida Maria.

It’s cold as hell. Gene has always been fairly certain that hell is cold (contrary to popular belief), and Bastogne is doing its best to prove him right. He eats a bit apart from the rest of the men, as usual, and then retreats to his foxhole, because it offers him a measure of protection from the burn of the wind. The foxhole isn’t covered completely, though, and it doesn’t block out the sound—the constant cacophony of sound that is probably going to drive him mad. Creaking tree trunks, rattling pine needles, whipping wind that mimics the crack of gunfire. Gene doesn’t mind noise, but this is something else. He burrows down against the ground and closes his eyes, dreaming of the bayou. Hot soft wind drifting through Spanish moss and the low whooping call of the barred owls and the feel of warm water against his skin. He misses the feel of water. Everything liquid freezes here, or else is cold and miserable and makes him worry of trenchfoot, or else is blood.

Lost in his thoughts, he doesn’t notice the crunch of footsteps until they stop and a body swings down beside him. He recognizes him by the dry cough.

“Hey, Heffron,” he mumbles.

“Hey Gene.” Babe crosses his arms and pulls his knees up to his chest. “You got a blanket or something? Jesus, I swear it got colder.”

“Yeah, I got one.” Gene tugs the blanket out of his back and hands over a corner, and Babe stretches it over his side, clutching the edge with one gloved hand. With the other he reaches up and takes off his helmet so they can both fit without too much discomfort. Their knees knock, and Gene can feel the cold radiating from Babe’s cheek, but it’s better than being alone. “How you doing, Babe?”

Babe stares ahead of him and shivers. He twitches one shoulder—not even a real shrug, but Gene can feel it, close as they are.

“Is Bill going to be okay?” he asks, voice trembling, and the answer to his question is the answer to Gene’s. “I mean, he’s—he’s not going to bleed out or nothing?”

“He’ll be all right,” Gene assures him. But he’s pretty sure that he knows that, so he elaborates, falling into the slightly-detached, professional medic voice that always seems to soothe people in the middle of a crisis. He’s not sure he manages the detachment, though; it’s hard when Babe obviously _feels_ things so strongly. “Only reason I told the other medics to take him first was because he still had part of his leg attached and I’m sure it hurt like hell. The doctors had to amputate, but it’s nothing to worry about. They know what they’re doing; long as it doesn’t get infected, Guarnere’ll be up on crutches and running around before you know it. Probably the biggest worry is that he’ll try to show up here again.”

Babe laughs weakly and drops his head. Even in the dark, his hair shines copper-red at his ears and the back of his neck.

“Toye too?”

“Toye, too.”

They don’t speak for a moment, and the noisy wind whirls around them. Their body heat is beginning to gather under the blanket, and Babe relaxes his knees a little bit—but only a little, because to be honest there isn’t that much space. Gene had only dug his foxhole to fit one, which in retrospect was a stupid idea. He’s been lecturing the whole damn company on how to keep warm for days, and yet he’s fallen asleep on his own, snug in between earth walls, more than once.

Then again, he hasn’t spent much time in his foxhole overall. That’s the point of a medic, really; other soldiers stick with their platoon, their officers, their foxhole buddies. A medic needs to be everywhere at all times, and for the most part he’s good at that.

“I was in a foxhole with him that morning,” Babe says in a hushed voice. “With Bill. And Buck. I thought there might be something going on with Buck—he’s got combat exhaustion worse than trenchfoot, right?—but fuck, I never thought that Bill might go home for good. He’s the toughest son of a bitch I ever met, and then one second...”

He shudders again and then, in an easy movement, leans down and rests his head against Gene’s shoulder. Gene almost jumps, and he looks around and stares down at the swirl of his hair. Babe has lots of siblings, he remembers. He probably doesn’t even think about things like this—about reaching out for comfort and touch.

“Bad enough losing Julian,” he says miserably. “I didn’t think I’d ever lose Bill, too.”

“Hey now,” Gene interrupts. “Hey, don’t talk like that, Babe. It don’t do you or them any good.” He extricates his arm and puts it around Babe’s shoulder, holding him close under the blanket. Babe leans in gratefully and Gene thinks that it’s almost warm. Warm as Bastogne can be. “Now listen to me: Bill Guarnere is not dead. You are not dead. Bill’s gonna go home, where he’s got a mother and a father and a whole mess of brothers and sisters to fuss over him and make sure he stays not-dead. What happened to Julian... that was a tragedy, I know that. But he’s with God and you’re going to bring his things back to his momma, and ain’t nobody going to say that you’ve done anything less than your duty.”

He can’t see Babe’s face, but he can hear him laugh. Babe laughs easily, too.

“That’s more words than I ever heard you say, Doc.”

“Sorry for talking your ears off, Heffron, but it is my goddamn foxhole.”

“Yeah yeah, I know. That helped. I think. I’m feeling better about Bill and Joe and even Julian, anyways, since you’re sure they’re all right. Feeling a little worse about me, if the most cheerful thing you can find to say is _not dead_.”

“And you’re probably not gonna be dead any time soon,” Gene says reassuringly. “Because who cares about Dike when you’re part of the best damn company of the United States Army? With some damn fine officers like Winters and Nixon looking after you?”

“Best damn medic, too,” Babe agrees with a grin. He shuffles a bit and relaxes his shoulders and closes his eyes. “Mind if I stay here tonight, Doc?”

“Fine.”

“Safest place to be, probably. Just promise that when the krauts get us, you’ll be up quick enough to keep me from getting dead, yeah?”

“I’ll do my very best,” Gene says with a soft laugh. Babe cracks open one eye and peers up at him in admonishment.

“That don’t sound like a promise, Gene.”

“I don’t like making promises,” he says absently, staring out at the snow. “Can’t always keep ‘em.”

“So?” Babe says with a yawn, and the dry air makes him cough. Gene’s arm tightens around his shoulders. “Nobody can keep a fucking promise around here. But they make people feel better. Give ‘em something to hope for, you know. You could try it once in a while.”

“All right. I promise that if a shell lands in our foxhole tonight... and my own arm doesn’t get blown off... I’ll see to you first and make sure you get outta this war alive. That all right, Babe?”

“Good enough for me.”

He turns his head into Gene’s shoulder, and the tip of his nose touches Gene’s neck right where the collar ends and bare skin begins. It’s cold and Gene shivers, but he doesn’t pull away. The best night of sleep he has so far was when he stayed in Spina’s foxhole with him and Babe; every other night, when he’s fallen asleep alone, or curled next to other soldiers but not so close, the cold has seeped into his mind, stilled his thoughts. Mental frostbite, he thinks with a bit of smile. Much worse than the momentary discomfort of Babe’s chilly skin against his.

“It’s too quiet here,” Babe grumbles after a moment. “Everybody whispers. Nobody ever whispers in Philly, ’specially in my house.”

“You live with your family still?”

“Yeah, me and my ma and pa. Got a little brother and two sisters—Maggie got married last year so she’s probably out by now, but Alice’s just seventeen, so... we got some boarders, too. The house fits five—well, six with me gone. Don’t know how many of the ones I knew have stuck around still, though.”

“Jesus,” Gene huffs. He stretches out his legs as much as he can because he’s starting to feel pins and needles, and Babe makes a low irritated noise, like a lazy dog, until he settles. “How d’you get a second of privacy with all them people running about?”

“Privacy, what’s that?” he says with a laugh. “You live alone?”

“Mm-hm. Moved to Baton Rouge a few years ago for work. I grew up in Bayou Chene, but after ten years or so we had to move; something about oil drilling, I don’t remember. So me and my parents and my sister moved over a town or two, and when I joined up they were still there. Got a letter a few months ago, though, from Carla saying she was going up to Baton Rouge too, getting a job, and Mama and Papa decided to join her.”

“That’s too bad. Bayou Chene has a real nice ring to it,” Babe says, and on the words _Bayou Chene_ his voice deepens and slows again in a (fairly ridiculous) imitation of Gene’s. He’ll be putting Luz out of business. Gene rolls his eyes and jabs Babe in the side, and he tries to squirm away without relinquishing his comfortable place on Gene’s shoulder. “Hey, Gene, quit it!”

“I can do what I want in my own damn foxhole.”

“Fuck you, I’m too damn ticklish for that shit—if you don’t quit it I’m gonna shout out so loud the whole goddamn kraut army is going to shell us, I swear to God.”

“All right, all right, all right,” Gene says with a smile. “I’ll stop. If only ’cause I think if Spina was left in charge he’d kill the whole lot of you outta frustration. Good Lord knows I’ve thought about it once or twice.” Silence—or what passes for silence in Bastogne—sits between them for a moment. Gene can feel the gentle, even softness of Babe’s breath against his neck and he thinks of warm wind over low-hanging tree trunks, and gentle lapping water. “You ever seen a bayou, Babe?”

“Nah. Bet it’s quieter than Philly. Peaceful-like.”

“Quiet? Nuh-uh. There’s noise, but not like this... I was a kid when I lived there, you know, so I was always running around and everything. I didn’t think it was peaceful back then, but now—yeah. I miss a lot of things.”

He realizes that his index and middle fingers are swirling on Babe’s shoulder, rubbing a small circle into the fabric of his jacket, and his cheeks heat although he’s not entirely sure why. Babe doesn’t seem to notice. His weight has settled against Gene’s fully now, and he’s probably halfway towards sleep.

“Like what?” he says through a yawn.

“Hm?”

“What do you miss? What’s it like down there? Warm?”

“Yeah...” Gene says, and before he can really think he’s telling Babe about it. About the old house and the trees and the birds. About the only school he ever went to, the worn-down church, his grandmother, and the friends whose name he’s half-forgotten. At some point he’s pretty sure Babe has fallen asleep. At some point the words die out and he’s falling asleep, too, to the rickety sound of wind through bare branches.

—-

It’s still cold. Warmer than Bastogne, because now they have supplies—socks, winter jackets, proper gloves, and houses instead of foxholes. But it’s still cold, and Gene stalks away from the building and shoves his hands in his pockets to keep the wind from chipping away at the dry skin of his knuckles. His hands are still smeared with cooling blood, and in the cellar of the building at his back lies Jackson’s body. He’s not thinking about that. He’s thinking of the cold, and the curdling anger in his stomach directed at Edward Heffron.

He’s almost relieved that Babe follows him, calling out “Doc!” and then swearing under his breath as they duck through the makeshift maze of the Hagenau streets. Gene has had practice weaving through cover at a high speed, so he manages to evade his pursuer until his foot is on the doorstep of his lodgings, and Babe’s hand touched his shoulder and yanks him around.

“Doc, you—”

“Get outta here, Heffron,” Gene snarls, and in the semi-darkness he can see the way Babe’s eyes widen in shock, the whites showing around his dark irises.

“What the fuck, Gene,” he breathes, more surprised than offended. “I just wanted to see if you were okay. You know you looked kind of—”

“Kind of what? Pissed off? ’Cause I damn well am.” He shoots the words out like bullets and Babe’s hand slips from his shoulder. Babe steps back just a little bit and Gene steps forward aggressively. He hasn’t had a chance to do this since training; medics aren’t meant to be aggressive, but he finds that he kind of likes it. “And it’s your own fault, Heffron.”

“Hey, I didn’t throw a grenade in his goddamn face,” Babe says hotly. “And it wasn’t me screaming at you like all holy hell in there! Jesus Christ, it’s okay to be upset and all but how is it _my_ fault?”

“Because you were the one who started asking for _promises_.”

Gene stops there. He has more he planned to say, but he feels an alarming spark at the back of his throat that might be tears, so he stops and breathes through his nose like a bull to keep the anger up and the grief at bay. He didn’t know Jackson very well. Doesn’t even know if he had a nickname for Gene to not use, but still that didn’t help, not when Gene had looked him straight in his eyes (wide in the darkness, from fear), and now that he feels his blood on his hands. It’s drying. Sticky, forming a thin skin in the cold. Babe stares at him.

“Promises?”

“ _Promises_. I knew, I fucking _knew_ they were a bad idea, but _you_ said they make people feel good and I thought—thought I might as well try. So the last thing that boy heard on God’s green earth was me lying to him. Telling him he was gonna live, but he _didn’t_ , because I lied and I couldn’t save him. Do you feel good about that, Heffron? Because I sure as hell don’t and I bet Jackson didn’t, neither. I— _fuck_.”

He breaks off and presses a fist against his nose and his lips, squeezing his eyes shut because the tears are coming back, and he hears Babe mutter “shit.” The low buzz of German artillery is still sounding in the distance, and there are voices coming from the house behind them, woken up by the firefight or by Gene’s shouting, they don’t know. Babe reaches out and takes Gene by the shoulders and pulls him away—not just out of the way, but around the side of the building so the light is cut off and no one will be able to see the gleam of tears on Gene’s cheeks.

Not that it matters. There are different rules out here than at home; there isn’t a man among them who hasn’t ducked into a corner and cried at some point. Some are still awkward about it, pretend it’s not happening. Some, like Bill Guarnere, bring it up freely, turn it into a joke. Some, like Babe, don’t draw attention to it or hide it, either—they’re just open, honest about their grief. Even now, when Gene is still clinging desperately to the tatters of his anger towards Babe, he can admit that he admires that.

“Hey, hey Gene,” Babe says quietly. “Hey, look at me—you did the right thing. Okay? Listen to me. He needed to hear it.”

“The fuck he did,” Gene says, shaking his head. “He needed me to _save_ him, not to lie to him, and I—”

“He needed you to _try_. And you tried. And I’m telling you, Doc, he needed someone to tell him he would be okay, even if he didn’t believe it. Listen, you weren’t there, okay? You didn’t hear what was going on before, ’cause it was hell. Everyone was screaming and shouting at each other, no one knew what was going on, no one knew if they’d be able to find you, and that little fucker Vest was hollering about how Jackson was going to die.” He lets out a dry laugh and Gene takes a deep breath. He is able to open his eyes at least, and he stares right through Babe’s middle as he tries to calm himself. “C’mon, Gene. I’m no medic, but what do you think: does it do a fucking 20-year-old kid good to be hearing ‘You’re going to die’ on one side and ‘Where the fuck’s the medic’ on the other when he’s bleeding on in a dirty fucking French cellar?”

“No.”

“No. He was thrashing all over the place, probably making everything worse, and he was panicking. And then you showed up. Jesus, Gene, do you even know what kind of affect you have on people? You came in and suddenly _somebody_ knew what to fucking do, and what to say, and what to look for. You couldn’t save him, okay... but you gave him peace.”

“Peace,” Gene echoes hollowly, and Babe’s hands rub at his shoulders soothingly.

“Peace. It’s the best you could do, Doc.” He swallows thickly. “You know, when Julian got shot... I knew he was gonna die. I could see it. But I told him I would come back for him, because I thought maybe if I did then he would know someone was trying. You know? He died knowing that someone cared enough not to give up. Lying ain’t the worst thing you can do for a person. Giving up on ’em is, and if there’s one fucking thing every man in this company knows, it’s that you’re not going to give up on us.”

Gene takes a deep breath. He looks up cautiously into Babe’s face and remembers the night that Julian died, and sharing the foxhole with Spina and Babe. Two medics in one foxhole. It was a stupid decision, but Babe had needed him and he never turned away from a man who needed him. That was the night Spina had told him he was tired of playing doctor, and it was just before Renee had said that she never wanted to heal another man again.

This is something that healers can say to each other. In the privacy of their own company, they can admit it. At the time, he had kept to himself, refused to admit that he felt the same way, because he really does think it gets easier sometimes. And even when it doesn’t, he wants to honor his grandmother, who kept healing people until her own death. She did it all her life; he can do it for the length of one war.

But there is such naked honesty in Babe’s face that Gene says it.

“Sometimes I want to. I just—I want to give up. God help me but I’m so fucking _tired_.”

Babe doesn’t even look surprised. He mumbles “Here,” and his hands move, sliding under Gene’s arms and around his back. Gene hugs him back tightly and Babe presses one hand against the back of Gene’s face, turning his head against his shoulder. They rock back and forth slightly and Babe sighs.

“Come on, Gene, let’s get you some food or something, all right? And a bed. A good night’s sleep’ll do you good.”

“I— I don’t think I can,” he says, because sleeping is when the numbness comes the easiest. Babe just nods and Gene can smell his hair. He smells like army soap and smoke—that mix of gunpowder and flecks of concrete that clings to every town they inhabit.

“You want to stay out here for a little while? It’s cold and we might get shot, but hey...”

Gene shakes his head and smiles. He loosens his grip on Babe and is almost disappointed when Babe does the same.

“Nah,” he says. His voice sounds hoarse. “You were right; I probably should go to bed.”

Babe’s eyes scrutinize him for a moment, and then Babe’s hand is on his shoulder again, pushing him in the right direction.

“I want some coffee. You want coffee? Let’s go.”

“Don’t you have to get back to your squad?”

Babe glances behind him and shrugs.

“I told Sergeant Martin and that new lieutenant I was going to check on you and they gave me the okay. I don’t think anyone’ll be looking for me until dawn.”

So they go into the house, and then down to the basement kitchen. At this time of night it’s empty, but Babe makes him sit and starts going through the boxes for coffee, and then through the cupboards for a battered copper kettle. He brews the coffee without speaking, although at one point he starts humming. Gene doesn’t know the song, although he has a vague idea that it might be from Joe Toye’s repertoire. Toye was barely on the right side of tone deaf, and Babe is much better, so it’s difficult to identify overlap.

“Thank you,” Gene says quietly when Babe hands him the coffee. The little metal cup feels good against his cold hands, and he feels better. Steadier.

“No problem, doc.”

“I shouldn’t have shouted at you. I apologize. It’s just—I don’t know. It’s been a tough night. I’ll be better in the morning.”

“Jesus, Gene, don’t beat yourself up about it. It ain’t been the best night for me either, and I was one of the morons screaming my head off in the basement. We’re _all_ wound up, all right? Being _human_ doesn’t make you any worse than us.”

Gene nods, and he doesn’t know what to say, and then he almost jumps when Babe reaches out and rests his hand on top of Gene’s. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, just sits there and traces little circles onto Gene’s skin with his forefinger. Gene remembers doing the same thing in Bastogne, not thinking, and remembers heat suffusing his face. So he looks and sees that, yes, Babe is blushing, too. But their eyes meet and hold, and Babe’s fingers keep up the soft, constant motion.

It’s strange, really, because their hands are hardened with callouses—guns and grenades and blood and stitches have left marks upon them—but the touch still feels soft.

“Would you—would you tell me about Philadelphia?” Gene blurts out.

“Hm?” Babe says, and his removes his hand to take a sip of coffee.

“Remember, in Bastogne, we talked about home? I told you about Bayou Chene, but you didn’t say much about Philly, just that it was loud and you had lots of people around all the time. I’ve been wondering, ’cause you know I didn’t grow up in a city so I don’t got any idea what it’s like. So—will you tell me?”

“Sure.”

Babe seems surprised, and Gene remembers suddenly that it’s two in the morning and Babe went out on patrol earlier.

“Sorry. If you want to go to bed…”

“No, I wanna talk,” Babe says firmly. “I wanna tell you about Philly. First off, you can’t just say Philadelphia, you gotta start with the neighborhood. Me, I’m from Front Street.”

Babe talks easily. Telling stories comes naturally to him, and sometimes Gene actually finds himself _laughing_. Laughing, in the middle of a war, in a building that might be bombed out any second, with a dead man’s blood on his hands. But it seems okay when he looks at Babe and sees the stress melting off his face. The cellar is quiet, except for the low hum of their voices, and he can’t imagine any place less like Bastogne. It’s… peaceful.


End file.
